EPA: Cleaning Our Environment, Fouling Its Own Hallways with Feces

Environmental bureaucrats: they are just like us! If we like to leave feces around the hallways of our offices, that is.

dirtyboxface / Foter / Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Some digging from Government Executive uncovers some Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) actions that could be said to pollute the human, if not the natural, environment:

Management for [Environmental Protection Agency] Region 8 in Denver, Colo., wrote an email earlier this year to all staff in the area pleading with them to stop inappropriate bathroom behavior, including defecating in the hallway.  

In the email, obtained by Government Executive, Deputy Regional Administrator Howard Cantor mentioned "several incidents" in the building, including clogging the toilets with paper towels and "an individual placing feces in the hallway" outside the restroom.

Confounded by what to make of this occurrence, EPA management "consulted" with workplace violence "national expert" John Nicoletti, who said that hallway feces is in fact a health and safety risk. He added the behavior was "very dangerous" and the individuals responsible would "probably escalate" their actions….

EPA spokesman Richard Mylott provided the following statement:

"EPA cannot comment on ongoing personnel matters. EPA's actions in response to recent workplace issues have been deliberate and have focused on ensuring a safe work environment for our employees. Our brief consultation with Dr. Nicoletti on this matter, a resource who regularly provides our office with training and expertise on workplace issues, reflects our commitment to securing a safe workplace."

Comments

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Issa Threatens EPA With Contempt as Team Obama Celebrates Its Climate Anniversary
...The hearing also included a bit of deja vu for the committee when members grilled McCarthy on lost emails from a hard-drive crash (the same issue that wiped out emails from IRS employee Lois Lerner). In this case, the emails in question were from retired EPA employee Philip North, who was involved in the agency's decision to begin the process of preemptively vetoing the Pebble Mine project in Alaska.

North, who declined an interview request by the committee, is retired, and committee staff say they have been unable to track him down. According to a committee aide, North's hard drive crashed in 2010?which was around the same time that the committee is investigating the agency's discussions of a potential veto?and the emails were not backed up.

McCarthy said it appeared there were some emails the agency could not produce that should have been kept, but she was still working to see if they could be recovered. McCarthy made it clear that it was a small set of emails and that the agency had notified the National Archives of the problem Tuesday, though had told Oversight Committee staff earlier....

[jesse.in.mb]

Confounded by what to make of this occurrence, EPA management "consulted" with workplace violence "national expert" John Nicoletti, who said that hallway feces is in fact a health and safety risk. He added the behavior was "very dangerous" and the individuals responsible would "probably escalate" their actions....

No way!

I am curious what escalation would look like.

[R C Dean]

I'm guessing it would start with Taco Bell . . . .

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Warty Hugeman and the trip to Taco Bell, by SugarFree.

[jesse.in.mb]

Well, clearly. Although if the Hallway Shitter is lactose intolerant, it could be as simple as a having a large Blizzard and a double cheeseburger at Dairy Queen.

[flye]

Ask anyone who works in a restaurant or business where homeless people may have access to the bathrooms what escalation looks like.

Actually, don't. It's not pretty.

[Max Power]

I valet parked cars when I was in college. Homeless people often "escalated" in the parking garage. I specifically remember running up and down the stairs to get cars and having to jump over a brown paper bag filled with shit.

[Max Power]

Although maybe that was just EPA employees staying at the hotel?

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Worse than 4am in a Tokyo all night karaoke bar?

[flye]

Well I haven't been, but.... no. Probably not.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

You'd think having the Russian mob in the next room would encourage people to behave.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Having worked in an amusement park during my formative years, this is a trigger for me.

[paranoid android]

I'm thinking "onto a moving escalator". Try cleaning that up!

[R C Dean]

EPA management "consulted" with workplace violence "national expert" John Nicoletti, who said that hallway feces is in fact a health and safety risk.

There are just so many things wrong with that sentence.

[Longtorso, Johnny]

Top. Men.

[Suthenboy]

So EPA employees are just warming up a little before starting a day of doing the same thing to the country. So what?

[Longtorso, Johnny]

He added the behavior was "very dangerous" and the individuals responsible would "probably escalate" their actions....

Flinging it like monkeys?

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

"EPA cannot comment on ongoing personnel matters."

So he admits it was one of his employees.

[PRX]

government flunkie shits on the floor. dog bites man.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Composting is good for the environment.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Look, do you want clean air or do you want shit-free passageways? Because the EPA only has time for one of those things.

[UnCivilServant]

If they focused more effort on making sure their employees didn't crap on the carpet, and less on harassing businesses, we'd be better off.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Testing.

[Paul.]

Defecataing in hallways is a human right!

[jesse.in.mb]

Stop oppressing me with your bourgeois lavatory norms!

[PapayaSF]

This is all cis-hygenic bigotry.

[PRX]

"in the hallway" outside the restroom.

close enough for government work.

[UnCivilServant]

No, really, it's not. Even we don't accept that margin of error.

[Sunmonocle Backwards Tophat]

The restroom was not constructed close enough to where public servants have chosen to defecate.

[Juice]

OT: http://www.slate.com/blogs/fut.....legal.html

An app that lets someone leaving a parking space to leave the parking space to the highest bidder got a cease and desist letter saying that the law prevents people from selling or leasing public property. I didn't realize that the time you decide to leave a parking spot was public property.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

One of my buddies took a protest shit in the hallway of a cruise ship. Carnival knew to send in a hazmat team without having to hire a workplace violence consultant first.

[Max Power]

What was he protesting?

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Drink prices on an "all inclusive" cruise.

[Dweebston]

But did he escalate?

[DingleB]

The problem is that you can't upper deck a commercial toilet; they have no tank. The protest shit must proceed, and the hallway is the next logical choice.

[ChrisO]

EPA's diversity program extends to the entire primate community.

[110 Lean]

RACIST!!!

[PapayaSF]

Next, Obama appoints a Hallway Feces czar and they begin a $100 million renovation of their future offices.

[PatriotInTheOriginalSense]

Cis Shitlord works at the EPA?